Juntos por Cambio runs the risk of disintegration after Argentina’s 2023 election. Libertarian leader Javier Milei offered congratulations to PRO’s two territorial winners, Jorge Macri and Rogelio Frigerio in Entre Ríos Province and added to the repetition of the word “juntos” in his speech after the results, lays bare the fact that Milei intends to hammer home the same reading Mauricio Macri reached after the PASO primaries: combining the votes of La Libertad Avanza and Juntos por el Cambio, “over half the country voted for change.”
The Unión Cívica Radical, who govern more territories than PRO and who contributed more votes nationwide to the opposition coalition, don’t think the same way. And if a year ago, when Milei was a less relevant competitor than today, they had joined up with Coalición Cívica and forced Juntos por el Cambio to sign an official document anticipating that they would not construct any electoral alliances with Milei, things would be different. A schism now looks closer than ever in the face of the run-off.
The same applies to current UCR party chairman Gerardo Morales, a figure who is dead set against Milei, and his more conservative predecessor Alfredo Cornejo, Mendoza Province’s once and future governor Alfredo Cornejo who had to fight off a pro-Milei local electoral adversary Omar de Marchi. Santa Fe governor-elect Maximiliano Pullaro, from the Evolución Radical wing of the party, is in the same position. It goes too for PRO moderates beginning with Buenos Aires City Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, whom Milei called a “shitty Communist,” often insulting him more than any other political party leader.
PRO is adrift with the possibility of reverting to being a Buenos Aires municipal party because it is worth remembering that the man who will be governing the other territory won by PRO, Entre Ríos, Rogelio Frigerio, was considered by Mauricio Macri to be part of the ‘fifth column’ of his party together with Emilio Monzó.
Milei astutely used Macri in the same way the Peronists skilfully used Milei. With less than 37 percent of the vote, quantitatively one of the worst elections in their history, they still came out on top..
With 27 days to go for the run-off, Massa is less than 14 points short and Milei a bit more than 20. It remains to divide the three-percent that went to leftists, the seven percent of Córdoba’s Juan Schiaretti and the 24 percent won by Juntos por el Cambio.
A new era begins
The emergence of La Libertad Avanza has probably come along to illustrate the inconsistency of the union of more or less progressive parties like the UCR Radicals and the Coalición Cívica with PRO, which was tamed by Jaime Durán Barba towards electoral goals but ideologically more to the right.
The Radicals, Coalición Cívica and the Socialists could confirm a parliamentary alliance similar to Grupo A in 2010, adopting a position far removed from Milei. PRO could join forces in Congress with the representatives of La Libertad Avanza while the Córdoba Peronists perform a balancing act between them and Massa’s Peronists.
Part of the reconfiguration of the political map includes a new Peronism. A new era is beginning.
SOURCE: www.batimes.com.ar